Montgomery County resident elected to Philadelphia Board of Ethics

Brian J. McCormick Jr. of Erdenheim was elected to Philadelphia’s Board of Ethics on Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012.

McCormick was nominated by Mayor Michael Nutter in October, and approved by Philadelphia City Council in a unanimous vote after a full confirmation hearing earlier in December.

An editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Nov. 2 touted McCormick’s appointment to the Board of Ethics by Mayor Nutter as “encouraging.”

Previously, McCormick served on a nine-person Task Force established by Mayor Nutter after the Mayor’s election to study and make recommendations for full disclosure and transparency in the city’s ethics and campaign finances. The final report was issued in late 2009 and recognized with appreciation by Mayor Nutter and numerous “good government groups” in southeastern Pennsylvania.

McCormick has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Philadelphia nonprofit Committee of Seventy. The organization works toward raising public awareness through advocacy for clean and effective government, fair elections, and an honest political culture.

McCormick, 43, is a managing partner of the Sheller P.C. law firm in Center City Philadelphia. Before joining Sheller, McCormick was a partner with the international law firm, Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney P.C., and also worked for the Blue Bell-based law firm, Elliott Greenleaf and Siedzkiowski. Earlier in his career he worked for the FBI in its Philadelphia field office and was a pool reporter for The TimesHerald in Norristown.

Former Mayor John F. Street created the ethics panel in 2006, after then-Councilman Nutter persuaded the rest of City Council to set up a referendum on making the Ethics Board an independent agency. The change was approved overwhelmingly by the public.

The five-member, independent Philadelphia Board of Ethics was established by ordinance, approved by voters in May 2006 and installed on Nov. 27, 2006. The Board is charged with providing ethics training for all city employees and enforcing city campaign finance, financial disclosure, and conflict of interest laws, and has authority to render advice, investigate complaints and issue fines.

Over the last five years, the list of candidates paying Ethics Board penalties has become a “who’s who” in local politics, including a PAC controlled by former Gov. Ed Rendell, the mayoral campaigns of Democratic Party chairman Bob Brady and millionaire Tom Knox, District Attorney Seth Williams, eight members of City Council, several powerful labor unions and more.

McCormick replaces Richard Glazer, the former Chairman of the Ethics Board and a lawyer who also heads the Pennsylvania Innocence Project at Temple University James E. Beasley’s School of Law. Glazer has been the Chairman of the Board since its inception in 2006.